Any recommendations on salt?

RobertP1969 · May 13, 2024

I'm sure this has been asked a million times already so I apologize. Should I just use instant Ocean
because my LFS stocks that?

tzabor10 · May 13, 2024

It’s always good to make friends with the LFS. Going in for salt keeps you around and then you can pick their brains when problems arise. All salts are the same

RobertP1969 · May 13, 2024

I was was kind of thinking they might all be about the same from all the research I've been doing but you know how it is there are a million reviews and reasons why one might be better than the other lol

Outlaw Corals · May 13, 2024

I went by all the reviews on the BRS website and went with Reef crystals, they had the most and the best reviews

Waters · May 13, 2024

Pretty much any salt will work...go with whatever mixes to the numbers you want and fits your budget.

dakoop · May 13, 2024

What's closest to your parameters?

michigan-reef · May 13, 2024

I have used Instant Ocean for over 7 years with great success. There is a lot of marketing and hype around different brands claiming to be superior in some way. Maybe some are, I really don't know. I do know that Instant Ocean is used by many public aquariums and coral growers. I am sure many experts have good reasons for using a salt other than Instant Ocean, but I also think those same experts could get excellent results with Instant Ocean. The fact that Instant Ocean is cheap and available from many local retailers close to me is a huge factor in making that choice as well.

Drummer98 · May 13, 2024

I used Instant Ocean for years back in the day. When I restarted my tanks a few months ago, I switched to Tropic Marin Pro-Reef and have been very happy with it. It dissolves very well, the parameters are great and I see a lot less suspect floaters in the water.

danimal1211 · May 13, 2024

Any salt is fine. Some you may have to adjust the parameters of (IO in particular) if you plan to keep stonies. Some salts have good enough parameters so that you can roughly match them with your tank.

bobnicaragua · May 13, 2024

Bobnicuragua salt has trace amounts of whale excrement! It does wonders for bacteria growth!

Other salts will cause STN, RTN, Popeye, and lots of marine death and humiliation.

So if you want to have healthy colorful corals and prefer living fish, use my salt.

Act now, while you still can!

JayM · May 13, 2024

RobertP1969 said:
I'm sure this has been asked a million times already so I apologize. Should I just use instant Ocean
because my LFS stocks that?

It has, and there's as many different recommendations as there are different brands of salt. Most will say that if you're running a FOWLR, any salt that you can get easily and/or inexpensively will be fine. If you keep, or plan to keep coral, pick a brand that mixes in the ballpark that you want your trace elements to be, and go with that.
I use Fritz Blue Box. Mostly because it mixes where I want it to, and my LFS stocks it. There's probably something out there that would be "better" for my tank, but it's not readily available locally.

tzabor10 said:
It’s always good to make friends with the LFS. Going in for salt keeps you around and then you can pick their brains when problems arise. All salts are the same

All salts are definitely not the same, but any of them will certainly work.

jhadaway · May 13, 2024

I've tried a few different salts and nothing mixes as clean for me as Tropic Marin Pro-Reef. I keep my eyes open and always get it at BRS on sale.

areefer01 · May 13, 2024

Reefing budget
Water change frequency
Local availability
If you can properly store buy on major sale days

Any salt will work as long as the hobbyist makes and stores it properly. I typically use a salt that has close or equal to my base water parameters. This way should an emergency happen and I need to make water my chemistry isn't too far off. A lot of the salt debate comes down to brandy loyalty, marketing, and price.

In my use case I started with instant ocean and later switched to instant ocean reef crystals. Both worked fine. Only difference I saw was that my mixing bin was a bit more dirty over time with reef crystals. I later switched to Tropic Marin Bio Actif salt. This mixed clear. The difference with this salt is that you mix and use within 12 to 24 hours. It isn't a salt that one makes and stores. Again worked fine. Now I'm using Tropic Marin Pro Reef. Mixes clean. Can be stored. Same water chemistry that I use. Works fine.

Across all brands of salt I've used my display didn't skip a bit. Long and short of it is that it comes down to how much you want to spend on salt and if you need to store it. Budget is everything and salt is one area that you can save a bit.

Your mileage may vary of course.

mrjoe · May 14, 2024

I switched to accurasea salt recently a love it... reef crystals alk was to high for my tank and couldn't get it down... what also nice is they come in packets that make 5gal so it's perfect for me...

Ziggy17 · May 14, 2024

I started with instant ocean and found that I still had to dose Calcium and Mag as the levels in the salt were a bit too low. It also took awhile to dissolve and had floaters. Switched to Tropic Marin Pro and now I don’t dose anything but Alk to stay at 8.5 DKH. Dissolves super quick. BRS did tests and showed that the Tropic Marin also remained the most stable if that’s important to you. It costs more but it saves me from dosing which was the deciding factor.

bkwonnn · May 14, 2024

Yeah its worth to see what your tank needs.
SPS tank you need high everything, lps tank you want lower calcium and mag because otherwise you will end up with to high levels of this. Also if you want to dose something take that in consideration. I had to switch salt often because the needs of my tank changed.
I would suggest tropic marin classic salt.